Then please bless the world with the right way. 

You acknowledge that not every router in a network needs to be fully DFZ 
capable, but then crap on my desire to have more than a default route in one. 




----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Tom Beecher" <beec...@beecher.cc> 
To: "Mike Hammett" <na...@ics-il.net> 
Cc: "Mel Beckman" <m...@beckman.org>, "NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> 
Sent: Thursday, January 5, 2023 9:55:38 AM 
Subject: Re: SDN Internet Router (sir) 




"The right tool for the job" gets into a religious argument in assuming that 
one's way to do the job is the only reasonable way to do the job 




I disagree that it's religious. I completely agree there are locations in 
networks that having full DFZ capable routers doesn't make technical or 
economic sense. But there have long been different products for those different 
use cases. 


To perhaps explain my viewpoint better,(and perhaps I didn't properly 
comprehend the problem you're aiming to solve) : 


If you are trying to use SDN stuff to shuffle routes on and off a box because 
you have the wrong sized routers in place, then I would argue you're doing it 
wrong. 


If you are trying to use SDN stuff to (as Christopher mentioned) make decisions 
that are not strictly LPM, and the equipment you have cannot do that, then 
that's different and entirely reasonable. 


If the second use case is more of what you were asking, then I apologize for 
misunderstanding. 





On Thu, Jan 5, 2023 at 9:57 AM Mike Hammett < na...@ics-il.net > wrote: 

<blockquote>



"The right tool for the job" gets into a religious argument in assuming that 
one's way to do the job is the only reasonable way to do the job. 


Large networks historically have a very poor (IMO) model of gigantic iron in a 
few locations, which results in sub-optimal routing for the rest of their 
network between those large POPs. I've heard time and time again that someone 
buying service from a major network in say New Orleans has a first hop of 
Dallas or Atlanta. I agree that full-route capable routers need to be in the 
large, central locations, but it isn't cost effective to have them at every 
POP, especially if you're a last-mile provider. 


I'd go into more examples of where it doesn't make sense to have full-route 
routers everywhere, but I'm afraid that the Internet would then focus on the 
examples instead of the core idea of intelligently putting routes into the FIBs 
of low-FIB routers throughout my network. 




----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 



From: "Tom Beecher" < beec...@beecher.cc > 
To: "Mike Hammett" < na...@ics-il.net > 
Cc: "Mel Beckman" < m...@beckman.org >, "NANOG" < nanog@nanog.org > 
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2023 7:36:58 AM 
Subject: Re: SDN Internet Router (sir) 


Disagree that it’s a line in the sand. It’s use the right tool for the job. 


If a device is low FIB, it’s that way for a reason. There are plenty of ways to 
massage that with policy and software, depending on capabilities , but at the 
end of the day, trying to sort 10 pounds of shit to store in a 5 pound bag is 
eventually going to end up the same way. 



On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 13:18 Mike Hammett < na...@ics-il.net > wrote: 

<blockquote>


There are likely more networks with 10 gigabit or less total external capacity 
than there are with more. 


Creating imaginary lines in the sand doesn't really help anyone. 







----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 



From: "Mel Beckman" < m...@beckman.org > 
To: "Mike Hammett" < na...@ics-il.net > 
Cc: "NANOG" < nanog@nanog.org > 
Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2023 10:57:34 AM 
Subject: Re: SDN Internet Router (sir) 


It’s not a problem, due to cheap, plentiful high-speed memory and rapid prefix 
search silicon in backbone routers. The entire Internet routing table consumes 
at most a few gigabytes when fully structured (and only a few hundred Mbytes 
stored flat). That’s less memory than your average laptop sports. 


Even in the worst case scenario, where every network decides to announce only 
its most specific prefixes, the BGP backbone would temporarily enter an 
oscillating state that generates a large number of routing updates into the 
inter-domain routing space. In this case, BGP route damping will quickly 
suppress the crazies while the backbone stabilizes. 


Small routers should not be taking full tables, since there is no point to them 
being in the default free zone. For large routers, neither memory nor CPU speed 
are an issue. High-speed routers operating in the default-free zone have a 
critical path in the forwarding decision for each packet: it needs to take less 
than the inter-packet arrival time for minimum-sized IP packets. 


This is easy to achieve with today’s hardware. A router line card with an 
aggregate line rate across all of its point-to-point interfaces of 10Tbps 
(readily available in today’s gear) can process packets with just a handful of 
cycles in the FIB Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM) using ASIC-assisted 
lookups. TCAM is the most expensive component you’re paying for in such a 
router. It’s not cheap, but backbone routers don’t need to be cheap. They just 
need to not be memory-constrained. 

-mel via cell 


<blockquote>
On Jan 3, 2023, at 7:47 AM, Mike Hammett < na...@ics-il.net > wrote: 


</blockquote>

<blockquote>


https://github.com/dbarrosop/sir 


I came across this over the weekend. Given that the project was abandoned six 
years ago, are there any other efforts with a similar goal (more intelligently 
placing routes into FIBs of low-FIB capacity devices? 




----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 


</blockquote>


</blockquote>


</blockquote>

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